Africa Rally 2009 - Team Fool Tank

[Funkstar]

OK, some kind of an update.

I've been out of the look offshore for the past couple of weeks, Andy was starting to panic more than a little. I couldn't get in touch with him to let him know what was happening.

Apparently I have most of my visas now, just the Nigerian one to get. They upped the requirements, now asking for copies/scans of US$500 Travellers Cheques and a letter stating I won't be doing any filming while there. Finally done. So my passport will be available for collection next week. I'll just put a little thanks to Travcour for being so cool about visas and dealing with it all for us

If anyone is interested in coming along to see us off, we are leaving from Dunsford Park on Sunday 13th December. All are welcome, more details here - HEXUS.social proposal - 13th December somewhere in the London area


Oh, and if anyone is really interested in helping out, here is a request from The Adventurists:

Hello Brave Ralliers

We're looking for two volunteers to come along and marshall at the Africa Rally launch. They'd be part of a team of six marshalls, working with our most esteemed safety guru Ken Rankin. In return for giving up a few hours of their Sunday we'd guarantee them a place on any one of our adventures they chose.

If anyone knows of any keen souls who'd be up for this please can you email us or ask them to email us at africa@theadventurists.com.

If you are interested, drop them an email.

As for sponsorship, we are pretty much on target, I have some more to add to the JustGiving page. Please give if you can though, everything is very much appreciated!

Thanks all. I'll keep this thread updated a bit more. Not long to go now!!

[Disturbedguy]

Will hopefully give tonight! Drop me a PM to remind me, I wont mind!

Not sure if I have missed something, but the fooltank website seems to be down?

[Funkstar]

Yeah there is an issue with the hosting. Hopefully Andy can get it sorted out next week.

Thanks dude. Much appreciated

[Gr44]

Donation as promised, best of luck guys - can't wait to hear the stories and see the photos upon your return!

Also, got plently of spare hosting if you need some... just pm me (just move DNS servers to mine and jobs a good'un!)

[Funkstar]

We now have Raymond back in London

Ben has been great, fabricated a cage for two standard sized jerry cans for the back, and bolted four spare wheels to the roof. He is running pretty great actually, made it from Hastings last night just fine and been running about London all day.



Slowly getting though out quite ridiculous to do list, still got a lot to do, but it's at least more manageable

We should get our passports back tomorrow full of visas. Really looking forward to that actually, I think it will make it more real. My parents are also coming down tomorrow to see us off on Sunday.

Should get more photos uploaded and linked in over the next couple of days for you all

[Funkstar]

And the fun begins!!!

It all started yesterday morning around 11, when an email from The Adventurists dropped into our inboxes. The leader of the team was called into a meeting with the Head of Counter Terrorism for The Foreign Office and told in no uncertain terms that the rally was to be cancelled because of the vastly increased and very real terrorism threat in several countries we would be heading through.

The main country with "issues" right now is Mauritania, but Mali and Niger are also particular hotspots.

So if you look at a map, you will see that not travelling through Mauritania would cause some issues. Mali isn't so much of an issue, as it is the northern regions where the hot spots are.

So what now for the rally? Well we are a resourceful bunch, and not that keen on letting terrorists spoil a nice drive in the country, so we thing we have an alternative. There is said to be a cargo ship from Tilbury to Dakar that may take cars, but not passengers. The solution? send the cars down and then make our own merry way to meet them for Christmas celebrations in Dakar! There are two main schools of thought on this: relax here for a few days and then fly down, or have a non-car trek through France, Spain and across to Morocco then fly to Dakar from Casablanca. This second option is the one that caught our interest.

Much phoning around, booking travel for ourselves and our trusty little steed, gathering opinions, updating plans, investigating visa issues.... will be done today. It's going to be a bit on the hectic side. Andy tells me this is what rallying is all about.

The launch party on Sunday IS STILL ON!! we just need to change our departure plans and direction (note to self: find out where Tilbury is). The party in Granada has, unfortunately, been cancelled. There were just too dates and deadlines for them to keep that on the list. Also due to an absence of four wheeled vehicles partaking in that leg of the Rally, getting to the venue would be a challenge in itself.

I think this covers all that has happened in the last 24 hours, though there may be a lot more throughout the day.

[Funkstar]

Car is now booked on the boat. Now to planning the route to Dakar!

Shame we already have the Eurotunnel and the crossing from Spain to Morocco booked

[Gerrard]

Am I right in saying that you'll continue your journey from Dakar to Cameroon? Slightly off-topic, but does the Paris-Dakar rally still run?

[Funkstar]

The Plymouth Dakar guys were in the same meeting as The Adventurists. I presume the French equivalent of the Foreign Office will issue the same notice to those guys. I also believe that the Morocco Mauritania border is actually closed for the time being.

Yes the rally will continue from Dakar to Limbe in Cameroon, we just won't be going to Timbuktu on the way

Since the last update, we have a pretty big change of plans again

We will be leaving the Top Gear track as planned and continuing on to Casablanca as we had always intended. There has been a lot of different discussion with other teams this afternoon and the feeling is that the Tilbury-Dakar route is 'nice' but not very interesting. We are now hoping to get a "ferry" from Casablanca into Dakar with us as passengers. The worst outcome from this is we completely fail and have to come home after having several days of partying in Morocco

on the bright side, we could arrive in Dakar around the same time as the other Tilbury cars after having a good old knees up on the way. Either way, it should be an interesting couple of weeks

[Tumble]

if you don't have Crosby Stills & Nash playing on a continuous loop until you get to Morrocco, you fail

[Funkstar]

Any particular reason?

if it was up to Andy, I think it would be "Best of the 80's power ballads" or something like that

[Tumble]

"We're all riding on the Marakesh express..."

[Funkstar]

That's a new one on me to be fair

[Funkstar]

We've just got in to a 'credit card' hotel off the A118 (i think) just outside Paris. Paris is a complete nightmare to navigate round.

Raymond is doing ok, some miss firing and was stalling on low revs. taking him to a garage tomorrow morning to get looked at, we don't think it's major, timing and air/fuel mix we think (we aren't mechanics though )

I'm off to sleep, been a long day!

[kidzer]

Awesome!

You'll have to update your location in your profile btw

[Gr44]

Good to meet you yesterday Funkstar/Neil (and the other Hexites!)

Best of luck with your journey, it'll be one to remember that's for sure!

Sean